How technology powered the Catalan referendum

One of the real heroes of the
referendum was undoubtedly social media.

Emeka Forbes.This month’s vote was a wake up call for Governments around the world,
that in an age of technology, silencing the voice of democracy is easier said
than done.

The movement for independence in
Catalonia is not a new phenomenon. In fact, the first political party to call
for a split from the rest of Spain was founded back in the 1930's, but in
recent years, those calls have been growing in intensity. With a healthy
majority in the Catalan parliament, nationalists acted with authority, if not
authorisation, as they announced plans to hold a referendum on independence on
October 1.

Despite efforts to thwart the
vote by the Spanish Government, Catalans went to the polls anyway in open
defiance of what they perceived to be a Spanish attempt to deny them a democratic
voice. Ballot papers were hidden away from the National Police and the Civil
Guard, and normal citizens took to the streets around polling stations to
defend ballot boxes from confiscation by the police. October 1 was a day for democracy, powered by
technology.

Although there were several
factors at play in assuring the vote went ahead, not least the courage of
officials who went to great lengths to organise the event, technology played a
huge part in the referendum. From social media, to peer to peer encrypted messaging
applications, October 1 was a day for democracy, powered by technology.

In the days leading up to the
referendum, the Catalan Government struggled to keep their official website
detailing information about where and how to vote online. Citizens would rush
to visit official domains only to find sites already blocked by the Spanish
Government. In a game of cat and mouse, versions of the official website began
to pop up at increasingly unlikely domain addresses, including guardiacivil.sexy,
in a clear attempt to satirise the Spanish use of the police [The Guardia
Civil] to block a democratic vote. Citizens would rush
to visit official domains only to find sites already blocked by the Spanish
Government.

In the end, referendum organisers
decided to make use of a semi-open source, peer-to-peer messaging application
called Telegram founded by two Russian entrepreneurs in 2013. The app gained
massive traction after the announcement that Facebook was set to buy WhatsApp
in 2014 as users scrambled to find alternative ways to chat.

Unlike WhatsApp however, Telegram
supports in-app ‘channels’. This means that users can sign up for updates from
other users or organisations and receive instant messages without having to be
part of a large group chat. Telegram can therefore be used to quickly
communicate key pieces of information to large audiences. Organisers also used
the app to create an automated ‘bot’ feature which allowed citizens to input
their details and find their local polling station without having to rely on
the official referendum website which could be blocked at any point.

Emeka Forbes. As Spanish police flooded into
Catalonia and successfully closed more than 1000 polling stations on the
morning of the vote, Catalan authorities issued a rushed announcement stating
that citizens could vote at any polling station if theirs had been closed. This
meant that checking voter IDs in order to prevent double voting became
essential and in turn, internet access in polling stations was essential.

As most polling stations are
situated in schools across Catalonia, blocking internet connections was fairly
easy for Spanish Police. Organisers responded by equipping polling stations
with mobile hotspots in order to maintain a reliable connection throughout the
day. One thing that wasn’t accounted for however, was the sheer weight of
demand on 3G and 4G networks during the day, especially around polling stations
as citizens gathered to defend them from Spanish police officers constantly
rumoured to be ‘on the way’.

With polling stations facing
shaky internet connections and struggling to keep the cogs turning,
instructions were issued to those on the streets nearby; “turn off your mobile
data!”.

Dateless, citizens would have
been completely in the dark on police movements or the safety of their loved
ones without another peer to peer messaging app; FireChat. The mobile app first
made popular in Iraq in 2014 following Government restrictions on the internet
allows users to message each other without any active internet connection.

Instead, it uses short range wifi
and Bluetooth signals to create an active connection to nearby devices within
200ft. By lining up other people using the app, signals can be bounced off
other devices like relay stations, thus amplifying the range to cover much
greater distances. FireChat’s website explains this by describing a mesh
effect. The more people using the app in a given location, the stronger and
therefore quicker the service as the mesh grows. Without mobile data, FireChat
became a useful tool for some citizens to send essential messages in the midst
of large crowds. People had nobody to turn to but the
rest of the world via live streaming apps like Periscope and Facebook live.

“Some of us were already using
FireChat to communicate in the crowd because of the slow internet. When the
[referendum] organisers told us to turn off our data, we could still share
information” said one citizen who recounted stories of a day spent defending
ballot boxes and waiting for the Spanish police to show up at her polling
station.

One of the real heroes of the
referendum however was undoubtedly social media. In the midst of police
violence on the streets, people had nobody to turn to but the rest of the world
via live streaming apps like Periscope and Facebook live on their smartphones.
“Of course, if we didn’t film these things, the world wouldn’t know about them.
In Madrid, the news is still saying only a handful of people were injured but
the police, they say it was a proportional response, but this is a lie (…) now,
everybody has a smartphone so we can show the rest of Europe how they [the
Spanish Government] are treating us” said Luisa as she stood against a backdrop
of Catalan flags during a protest outside Barcelona’s main university campus. The
role of microblogging tools like Twitter has also been essential for sharing
‘on the ground’ experiences from ordinary people in an age of citizen
journalism.

Traditional news sources are
often seen as a reliable way to sift through information and separate fact from
fiction, but many Catalans have a deep distrust of the media.

As I wondered through the middle
of another protest trying to understand the Catalan chants, I spoke to Miguel
who moved to Barcelona from Andalucia several years ago, but now firmly
supports independence. “The news reports are always unfair to us. Sometimes,
they show up with their camera at these big protests, and you know when they
start filming? Right at the end, as everyone goes home. Then they say it was
only a small protest, that we (pro-independence protesters) are a minority.
Whenever we see them trying to film, we chant louder, we tell them what we
think of them”.

On sites like Facebook and
Twitter, the possibility of going viral creates a perfect breeding ground for
political memes. As one student told me, “people think memes are just funny,
but actually, they are a way of teaching some things. We make humour out of
politics and it becomes something people want to share, and then everyone knows
something more about the issue”.

“I think this vote was about the
people, and technology doesn’t change that, but we are against a Government
with lots of power, and maybe the way we can use technology gives a little bit
of power back to us so we can stand up and make our voice heard”.

About the author

Emeka Forbes is a freelance journalist
and former political advisor. Find him on Twitter @emekaforbes

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